“I’m going public with my challenge to primpy lawns,” writes Reggie McLeod in his editor’s note in t...

How do people connect with one another? How do we find our soul mates, the people we are meant to live with, work with, and love? The provocative and moving new film I Am, now playing in theaters, may provide a clue.

I Am is a documentary by the 52-year-old director Tom Shadyac, who made a name for himself by writing and directing the Jim Carrey movies Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Bruce Almighty, and Liar Liar. Despite the accompanying fame and fortune, which included all the accoutrements society tells us we need for “success,” Shadyac came to the realization that he was “no happier.” Then he was in a near-fatal bicycle accident that left him wondering what he really wanted to do and say before he died.

To answer that existential riddle, Shadyac started meeting with consciousness researchers, academics, thought leaders, and spiritual teachers—including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky—and asking two questions: What’s wrong with the world? And what can we do about it?

One of the most intriguing concepts that Shadyac discovered is what physicists call “quantum entanglement.” A basic tenet of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement posits that everything is connected across space and time. Two objects that interact, whether they are elementary particles, distant celestial bodies, or proximate human beings, become inextricably connected. Move one and the other senses it in some still inexplicable way and responds.

Dean Radin, who appears on camera in I Am to explain the concept of quantum entanglement, is senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006). I asked Radin how quantum entanglement relates to human relationships. He said that entanglement suggests that at deep levels, the fabric of physical reality is all about interconnections, and that our everyday sense of separation is an illusion. Further, he said, “Since you cannot observe something without influencing it, strong intentions might cause a kind of gravity that pulls people of like minds together.”

The concept of quantum entanglement is reminiscent of what I call Lyon’s Law, named for my beloved, Susan Lyon, who is, as far as I know, the first person to use the term “soul resonance.” Lyon’s Law states that each of us emanates a signature vibration throughout our entire lives. This emanation has its own unique vibratory rate and quality—its own “note,” if you will—as unique and distinct as a snowflake or your fingerprint. Unlike your fingerprint, however, your soul vibration changes over time, becoming more or less clear and distinct, or clouded and obstructed, depending on how you live your life.

As Plato said, the purpose of life is the “tendance” of the soul. We can refine our souls only through life experience. Ultimately, this means that the purpose of life is to learn how to love openly, freely, unconditionally, and also skillfully—to heal old wounds rather than create new ones. Taking a page from Plato, Lyon’s Law sees life as a kind of school. If we matriculate and advance, we become more radiant beings, our love shining generously and unceasingly, like the sun.

Through genuine interaction with other souls, we clarify our distinctive notes. This is what the heart longs for—to love and be loved. Sometimes we stumble and have our hearts broken. Sometimes we break another’s heart. And sometimes life is grace-filled and exultant. From the moment we are born we begin searching for those individuals with whom we can tend our spirits, with whom we are in harmonic soul resonance, with whom we are quantumly entangled.

I Am reminds us that we’re all connected, and that we need to listen to our hearts. The entrepreneurs behind social networking services like Facebook, eHarmony, and Match.com would do well to take notice. After all, there may be a business opportunity in this mix of mysticism and poetic science.

Imagine what would happen, for instance, if Google made it their business to tap into our natural, though still mysterious, ability to sense the people we are meant to meet, the people we are destined to be with, the people we are attracting even at this very moment. Now that would spark a social revolution.

Who knows, maybe there will an app for that someday.

Eric Utne is the founder of Utne Reader. He is working on a book about the intense, clandestine correspondence between his grandmother, the writer Brenda Ueland, and Fridtjof Nansen, the Polar explorer and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Life is a puzzle to solve with any faculty. It is said, the science world is a dead world, devoid of feelings, impartial & repeatable. Once the results are published, we must integrate it to better understand life! A good writer, scientist or philosopher, muses about our very existence; a rich life on paper comes from many components, whether teased out dead scientific experiments & research, or a thoughtful trail through the meaning of life, or both!
Don't condemn a well written article for not following macro/micro experimental rigor. Macro/micro/quantum - great to know if you are running equations and experimental rigor, but tough to live by, if you use it as a barrier to musings about riding on a beam of light while holding a mirror.

steve eatenson

8/22/2011 9:21:43 AM

Take an abuser and a victim, put them in a large crowed room on opposite sides, they will likely find one another. Same with an addict and a caretaker. Opposites do attract so the law of attraction can be risky. So what is our purpose? Where did we come from? Where are we going to? What are we? What are we supposed to do? These questions scare the heck out of us; so much so, we allow self-serving manipulators to create religions that tell us what to do and answer these questions for us so these self-appointed holy people can lead us like sheep. We feel better following such guides because we convince ourselves doing so, we don't have to feel scared anymore and hey, it's the path of least resistance, we no longer have to think either. It's like fingers and toes. We are connected, part of the same body, but separate and distinct in our design and function. Fingers and toes are smarter than the whole it seems. They don't say, "look at me, I'm special, unique, better than you." They just do what they do.

David Kimball

8/22/2011 8:39:56 AM

Just because something describes scientific observations and then is used as a metaphor, does not mean that the substance of the metaphor is scientific. The power of connectedness is a great metaphor, but poor science. It is only science when it can be observed and used for predictive purposes. To make the science of quantum mechanics a "scientific explanation" for our feelings of connectedness is as erroneous as the Biblicists who take the round story of creation and try to fit it into the square peg of science. Science is science, and story is story, and never the twain should meet.

Jim Guinness

8/22/2011 7:29:59 AM

@boston33. Well-said. It may be that the science gives us a metaphorical framework for discussing (or speculating on) matters that don't lend themselves to normal methods of scientific experimentation and inquiry.

boston33

8/8/2011 5:32:28 PM

The rules of quantum physics only apply to things that operate on a quantum scale (particles that are smaller then atoms) particles of this size display all sorts of behavior that would be impossible for anything of a larger size to do. They can be at two places at once, they can vanish, literally vanish. Its is impossible to measure both the position and speed of these tiny particles. They can be either waves or particles, or both, or neither. They operate according to chance. These are not conditions a person would want to experience in day to day life, not something you would want to base a philosophy on. When objects are larger, like atoms, or people, they obey the laws of classical physics. On the classical level (anything atom sized or larger) opposite charges attract, and like charges repel one another. Quantum entailment is a very specific situation where quantum particles can link together (this usually involves a laser) in a way that makes them effectively two parts of the same entity. You can then separate them, and a change in one instantly changes that other. It has nothing to do with the power of thought.